


Know Thy Self, Know Thy Enemy

by AirgiodSLV



Series: Know Thy Self, Know Thy Enemy [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-27
Updated: 2010-10-27
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:29:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Eames looks at the photo on the table and wonders what the hell Arthur’s gotten himself into.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Know Thy Self, Know Thy Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [](http://cupiscent.livejournal.com/profile)[**cupiscent**](http://cupiscent.livejournal.com/) for always being my second pair of eyes.

5.

Eames is wary of the job even before the first meeting. The offer comes from people Eames doesn’t know, and what he’s even being hired for is just vague enough to give him pause.

When a glossy surveillance photo is slapped down onto the café table in front of him, his concerns appear to be even more warranted.

“This is the mark,” says his prospective employer, a portly man going bald on top and grey at the temples who calls himself Mr Grey. He carries himself like a businessman, rather than military, but with that same expectant air of being accustomed to having his orders followed. His clothes are expensive, if off the rack, and the figure he’d quoted Eames on the phone had been enough to pique his interest even without knowing the details.

Eames looks at the photo on the table and wonders what the hell Arthur’s gotten himself into.

“You are aware that we know each other,” Eames says. Normally he’d withhold that kind of information if he thought he had a chance of getting away with it, but Mr Grey has more photos on the table now, dating back at least nine months, going by the locations and the tie that Eames remembers seeing ruined by blood spatter in Bengaluru. Since Eames worked a job with Arthur just three months back, odds are high that Mr Grey knows about it.

“I had hoped you might be able to use that to your advantage,” Mr Grey replies easily, confirming the knowledge. “What I need from you is enough surveillance information to be able to take the mark out of play for an extraction.”

Meaning that if Eames is spotted – which there’s a good chance he will be, sooner or later, because Arthur is no fool – he has the opportunity to play it off as being a visiting acquaintance.

“What’s the goal of the extraction?” Eames asks, digging further into the pile to see what he can unearth. Phone records, credit cards. All very basic, and lacking more insight than what mere strings of numbers can provide. This is Arthur’s speciality, not his.

“That’s not necessary information for you at this time,” Mr Grey says. “I have another team member who will handle that end.”

Eames sizes him up with a look, weighing whether he’s willing to be in the dark for this one against whether he wants Mr Grey to underestimate him. He decides on the latter, but just barely. He prefers to be well-informed, particularly when it’s his neck on the line.

“What’s the timeframe?” he asks instead. Arthur is in L.A. now, according to the briefing file in front of him. That means he’s likely lying low, rather than working a job. Arthur goes to the States when he wants to be able to move quickly and without too many questions asked. There’s no telling, of course, how long that situation will last.

“Three days,” Mr Grey answers. “After that, we move.” He pulls out another photograph and sets it on the table in front of Eames. “Can you forge this woman?”

It’s Mal, alive and vibrant, sitting by Arthur’s side in a café somewhere. Cobb isn’t in the picture, but there are three sets of silverware on the table, so Eames assumes he’s somewhere out of sight. In the photo, Mal is leaning into Arthur’s side, her hand placed teasingly on his shoulder. Arthur’s head is ducked, but not enough to hide the smile that shows his dimples.

Eames studies the photo for another moment before looking up. “Easily,” he says. Although if Mr Grey’s plan involves infiltrating Arthur’s mental defenses by using Mal, he’s in for quite a surprise. He has no reason to know what Mal became in Cobb’s mind after her death, and the reason that Arthur’s first instinct upon seeing her will likely be to shoot without hesitation, and aim straight for the heart.

It’s a hint that Mr Grey isn’t as well-informed about Arthur’s personal life and inner circle as he’d seemed. Not many people know about Mal, admittedly, but enough of their associates remember what happened well enough to know better than to think forging her is a good idea.

Eames wonders if Mr Grey thinks, like so many in their underworld community do, that his relationship with Arthur is antagonistic. He’d be willing to bet that’s the case, and that he was chosen because Mr Grey thought a personal grudge would be as much motivation as the money.

The truth is, he has nothing against Arthur. They don’t work together well and they never have, but that’s a matter of opposing styles and methodology, and in general they find a way around their differences in order to come up with spectacular results. Eames doesn’t particularly _like_ Arthur, but his first instinct is not to sell Arthur to the highest bidder and collect his thirty silver coins.

“You’re taking something of a risk here,” he remarks, rubbing his thumb along the side of his jaw, which is smooth for once, freshly-shaved and alien. “What’s to stop me from going directly to him and asking for a better offer?”

Mr Grey smiles thinly. It’s not a pleasant look, and assuredly not an expression of genuine amusement. “I still have surveillance on the house,” he replies. “If I see that he looks spooked, I move to plan B.” He meets Eames’ gaze easily. Not bluffing, then. “I’d prefer a clean extraction, but there are other ways of silencing a man before he becomes a problem.”

Eames sits still for a moment. The breeze kicks up, chilling the back of his neck where his hair has been buzzed short and cutting through the material of his thin socks. “I accept your offer,” he says finally.

Mr Grey gives him that same, thin-lipped smile again. “I thought you might,” he says. “Welcome aboard, Mr Eames.”

  


4.

Arthur rents a cosy bungalow in Santa Monica near the beach. Eames spends a few minutes admiring the view, and nearly blows his cover within the first half-hour when Arthur returns from a morning run, jogging past the car Eames has parked down the street.

Eames curses himself for an amateur and moves to a better location, keeping one eye on the house and the other on the neighborhood. It’s just upper-crust enough that there’s a possibility of someone calling the cops on him if he looks too suspicious. The best option would be to rent one of the other bungalows in the area and set up a base of operations there, but he can’t do it in three days. He wonders what Mr Grey is after that makes time such a precious commodity.

Arthur doesn’t re-emerge for the better part of the day, leaving Eames bored and badly wishing for air conditioning. He finally heads out again when the sun is just starting to set, dressed in a t-shirt and track pants so incongruous to what Eames is used to seeing him in that it takes Eames a moment to convince himself he’s staking out the right person.

Arthur drives to a local gym, and disappears inside for another two-and-a-half hours of sheer boredom on Eames’ part. He entertains himself by checking out the admirably fit men and women passing through the doors, making bets with himself on which ones Arthur might have noticed as well. Arthur seems like he’d appreciate the athletic type, Eames decides. Solid muscle speaks to a good work ethic.

Arthur appears at eight-thirty, looking relaxed and frankly not a little fucked-out. Eames’ eyebrows rise nearly to his hairline. He’d had no idea Arthur so appreciated a good workout. Or perhaps there’s more to Eames’ gym-bunny appreciation theory than he’d given credence.

Whatever it is, it shows in his driving. Eames curses inwardly as they crawl along in the left lane through California highway traffic, which never seems to drop below seventy-five, with a slew of drivers laying on their horns and making it next to impossible for Eames to stay several cars back and unnoticed.

He’s almost run over by a lorry and has just swerved back into the left lane when he realizes that Arthur’s car has disappeared. There’s a moment of panic that isn’t completely justified, because he can always catch up with Arthur at the house again, but then he sees a familiar hybrid taking the exit, three lanes over.

Eames nearly gets himself killed crossing traffic and attracts some attention while doing it, but he makes the exit. By then Arthur’s one traffic light ahead of him, and he makes a left turn from the right lane that leaves Eames cursing and slamming on his brakes. Arthur drives like he’s drunk, like he has a complete disregard for traffic laws that Eames never would have expected.

Or, Eames realizes as Arthur takes an abrupt U-turn and cuts right just as the light turns red, leaving Eames trapped behind a compact on the other side of a raised divider, like he’s losing a tail.

He takes the same turns as soon as the light turns green, but as he’d expected, Arthur is long gone. Eames takes the highway back to Arthur’s bungalow, retracing the most likely path, and finds that Arthur’s beaten him there. His car is in the drive, and all of the lights are on. Eames drives past and then parks out of sight, a block down where Arthur hopefully won’t be able to spot him. He’ll have to swap rentals in the morning.

There’s no further sign of activity from the house, all quiet and still. This isn’t much of a neighborhood for the late-night crowd, apparently. Eames is in even more danger, now, of having a concerned homeowner spot him and call the authorities.

He bides his time for as long as he dares, and when the lights are still on at midnight, he pulls out and goes to find somewhere to sleep.

  


3.

Eames is in a brand-new rental compact, enjoying his morning coffee, when he sees Arthur appear for his morning run. He stretches out on the curb, not appearing to mind the dewy humidity that Eames is already bitterly lamenting, and then jogs toward Eames.

Directly toward Eames.

Eames curses silently, but there’s nowhere for him to go. Starting the car and peeling out would only attract even more attention, and he has a feeling it’s too late to salvage this anyway. Arthur has clearly spotted him.

Arthur raps on the driver’s-side window, waiting until Eames grudgingly rolls it down. “If you’re going to be stalking me, you might as well come for a run,” Arthur suggests. “You could probably use the chance to stretch your legs.”

Eames gives it a moment of consideration, but Arthur’s right, he really is tired of being cooped up. And there’s no hope of extricating himself gracefully.

Arthur waits while Eames changes into a pair of battered trainers from the duffel in the trunk, and then they take off, heading toward the beach.

“How long have you been watching me?” Arthur asks, when they pause for a breather next to a lifeguard station. Eames debates again, but there’s no point in lying, not when Arthur has the resources to call him on it and overall it doesn’t make much of a difference whether or not he tells the truth.

“Since yesterday morning,” Eames answers. He sees a slight flash of surprise and annoyance cross Arthur’s expression, and is briefly pleased to know that apparently Arthur hadn’t caught on until the evening.

He waits to see if Arthur will ask why, but Arthur just shades his eyes against the growing sunlight and asks, “Ready?” so Eames nods his head and falls in by Arthur’s side as they start running again.

By the time they loop around and make it back to Arthur’s residence, Eames has come to the conclusion that Arthur already knows what he’s doing here. It rankles, a bit, because _Eames_ doesn’t even know what he’s doing here, besides surveillance of Arthur’s daily routine, so the fact that he’s the only one in the dark grates on his professional pride.

There’s a moment, when they reach the bungalow, when Eames realizes that Arthur isn’t going to invite him in, and that his options are now to sit in his rental all day in the heat stewing in his own sweat, or returning to his hotel to shower and very likely losing track of Arthur the moment he turns his back.

Arthur gives him a tiny smile, like he knows exactly when Eames is thinking. “Tell me this,” he says, while they’re still standing in the drive, before Eames has reached a decision. “Should I be leaving the country tonight?”

Eames considers Arthur’s ability to disappear versus Mr Grey’s readiness for such an attempt, and all of the pieces in play of which he knows nothing. “I wouldn’t,” he advises finally.

Arthur nods, accepting the answer like he’d been expecting it. “I’m going out to pick up a few things after breakfast,” he says. “You probably have time to shower and change, if you like.”

Eames smiles briefly. “Thank you,” he says. Arthur nods again and heads inside. Eames watches him go, and then turns back to collect his car and head to his hotel. Even if Arthur does give him the slip, he thoroughly doubts it’s not something Arthur’s fully capable of doing even with Eames waiting outside for him to try it. He might as well be clean when it happens.

  


2.

Arthur’s day-to-day routine remains unvaried. Eames joins him for another run in the morning, and then Arthur runs a few mundane errands and disappears into his bungalow during the hottest part of the day, re-emerging in the evening to go to the gym for the same period of time.

He doesn’t bother trying to lose Eames on the highway, although he doesn’t engage him in conversation either, heading inside presumably for the night. Eames does a Sudoku puzzle from the morning paper and watches the lights go on, first the one in the entryway and then the others after ten minutes that Arthur likely spent in the shower.

After half an hour, Arthur opens a window and turns on the porch light, and Eames sits in bemusement listening to the sounds of one of his favourite Frank Marocco recordings drifting out into the night before he realizes he’s being invited in.

He finds the front door already open, and the smell of cooking chicken permeating the air. “You shouldn’t leave your door ajar,” he advises, joining Arthur in the cramped kitchen. “Someone might wander in off the street.”

“I have a bodyguard parked outside,” Arthur replies, barely glancing up from his seasoning preparations. “How do you feel about asparagus?”

“I didn’t know you cooked,” Eames says, leaning back against one of the Formica counters.

“I don’t,” Arthur answers. “I can make about three things, and this is one of them.”

The chicken is simple, but good enough, and Eames rescues the asparagus before it overcooks, so overall they have quite a pleasant meal. Arthur drinks one glass of red wine with dinner, not enough for Eames to even think of catching him off-guard and switching up the plan. He doesn’t know how Mr Grey would react to Eames calling him up and telling him the timeline had changed, but he suspects Arthur won’t give him the opportunity regardless.

After dinner, he finds Arthur looking at him in a speculative way that’s very familiar, although Eames has never seen it from Arthur. He wonders if he could actually be this lucky, if it could be this easy, but when he moves closer, testing, Arthur doesn’t move away.

“Why did you let me in?” he asks, because curiosity gets the better of him when he’s hovering a few inches away and Arthur still hasn’t flinched. “You must know why I’m here.”

“Keep your friends close,” Arthur quotes, and his expression shifts into what might almost be termed a smile, or at least close enough that Eames is confident he could tip it over into one if he tried.

Eames puts his hand on Arthur’s thigh, just to see what he’ll do in response. The muscles are taut under his hand, ready, but Arthur doesn’t do anything besides wait for him to make the next move.

“I could be seducing you into trusting me,” Eames tells him, searching Arthur’s eyes as they hold their positions, sizing each other up.

“I could be seducing you into switching sides,” Arthur replies, and then he doesn’t say anything else, because Eames closes the distance and calls his bluff.

Arthur allows his assault without yielding, kissing the way he does everything; as an equal, with absolute certainty in his own ability and worth. Eames takes the empty wineglass from his hand and sets it on the lamp table beside them before pushing his advantage and bearing Arthur down.

Arthur is clearly not accustomed to bottoming, but Eames sets about persuading him, first with his fingers and then his mouth, and finally both, sliding his tongue between his fingers and judging his success by the hitches in Arthur’s breathing.

Arthur finally acquiesces, showing flexibility Eames never suspected he had, allowing Eames to bend him into a position so compromising and vulnerable that Eames would be assessing current weaknesses if he weren’t so intent on burying himself in Arthur’s body.

He comments on it, when he’s in to the hilt and Arthur is adjusting, his breathing almost painstakingly even as Eames holds onto his control and waits. Arthur huffs out something that could be a laugh. “Yoga. Every night,” he says, and Eames is so surprised and unexpectedly aroused by the idea of Arthur sinking into absolute inner peace and balance while pushing himself to his physical limit that Eames forgets to move, and Arthur has to remind him with his teeth set into Eames’ shoulder, his low, commanding, “ _Now_ , Eames,” that goes straight to Eames’ cock.

He fucks Arthur until both of them are incoherent, and somewhere along the way he finally forgets to wonder if this is a trap.

  


1.

Arthur lies still afterward only long enough for their heart rates to return to normal, and then he goes to clean up, tossing a damp washcloth onto Eames’ stomach when he returns. “I’m going to make coffee,” he says, a clean pair of boxers and a t-shirt already hiding the marks Eames thinks he remembers leaving on Arthur’s skin. “Do you want some?”

Eames lets himself splay open further, and affects the slightest hint of a pout. “I couldn’t interest you in another round?” he offers.

Arthur’s smile is small, but unmistakably present. “I’m not going to fall asleep with you here,” he answers, dashing that plan right out of the water. “But you’re welcome to stay for a while.”

Eames spends a few more minutes lounging in bed, enjoying the post-coital haze, before the smell of fresh-brewed coffee gets the better of him and he picks up his discarded boxers, padding out to join Arthur in the kitchen.

He sips the first cup while it’s still hot enough to scald his tongue, and studies Arthur, who’s cradling his own mug and staring out the small window over the sink into the night. “You know why I’m here,” he says finally. Not-talking about it hasn’t gotten him anywhere thus far. He’s ready to try a different approach.

Arthur glances away from the window and meets his eyes briefly. “I knew they’d send someone,” he acknowledges. “I didn’t know it would be you.” There’s no hint of accusation in his tone, which Eames finds perversely makes him feel like even more of a Judas. Arthur is perfectly calm, as if having old acquaintances turn up on his doorstep to betray him is par for the course.

Eames leans back against the counter and takes another sip of his too-hot coffee. “Enlighten me,” he suggests.

Arthur’s eyebrows rise very briefly, but his expression smoothes over almost at once. “I worked an extraction at Fort Huachuca,” he says. “Two team members. The extractor was killed during our retreat.”

Meaning, Eames gathers, that there is no one else at large with the information Arthur currently possesses. “It must be quite the secret,” he surmises.

Arthur gives him that look again, like he’s evaluating whether or not Eames can be trusted. It’s almost amusing, considering why he’s here to begin with, and the fact that both of them know it. “It’s a new extraction technique the military has developed, in conjunction with a specific chemical sedative compound.” Arthur sets his coffee mug on the counter, untouched. “An extraction that leaves behind no trace, because the information isn’t simply copied. It’s removed.”

Eames takes a moment to let the ramifications of that sink in. “Targeted amnesia,” he extrapolates.

Arthur doesn’t deny his conclusion, which is confirmation enough. “I was hired by the pharmaceutical corporation that developed the compound for the military,” he says. “I didn’t make the delivery.”

“Why not?” Eames asks. He’d like to think his tone is disbelieving, but he knows better. Just like he already knows why Arthur didn’t make the drop.

“Who are we without our memories?” Arthur asks him, which is its own answer. “If someone has the power to remove selected parts of our history and experience, how can we trust ourselves?”

Eames is struck by a thought, a suspicion that leads him to set down his own cup and straighten up, looking Arthur hard in the eyes. “How many people know how to do it?” he asks.

Arthur doesn’t flinch away when he answers. “No one,” he says. “Only me.”

Eames feels like cursing, but he can’t say, in Arthur’s place, that he’d necessarily have done any differently. He has an inkling of how exactly the extractor came to be killed after the job, and why. Arthur wouldn’t trust just anyone with the responsibility of this knowledge.

The wisest thing to do, in Arthur’s position, is to disseminate the information as quickly and widely as possible, removing its value and his own worth as a target. That is, unfortunately, due to the nature of the information and the reason Arthur is being targeted in the first place, not an option.

There’s another thought hard on the heels of that one, because while Arthur may have had no qualms about eliminating another criminal if he felt it was absolutely necessary, Eames can’t imagine him doing the same to a dewy-eyed team of research scientists in a lab. And there’s only one other way for that information to have been erased.

“They’ll do the same to you,” he says, although Arthur must know it already, must have realized it even before completing his escape and going to ground. “The second their extractor has that information, they’ll turn it against you.”

Arthur doesn’t look away. “I know,” he says.

Mr Grey, Eames thinks, isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty, but he won’t if he doesn’t have to. He’ll do the extraction, because there’s no other way to learn the necessary technique, but after that, he’ll want to keep it quiet. He won’t have to have Arthur killed. All he’ll need will be at his fingertips, the knowledge to strip away every memory Arthur has of that job and the secrets he’d learned.

He could just as easily take it all. The job, and Arthur’s memories of the extractor, and possibly even the knowledge that extraction is possible, the foundation of Arthur’s way of living and everything else that goes with it. Every memory of Eames, including this night. Especially this night, because now that they’ve had this conversation, Mr Grey won’t be able to leave the memory intact.

 _Who are we without our memories?_ Arthur had said, and Eames wonders, _Who are we if no one else remembers us?_

“I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s not yet midnight, but he’s been waking early to join Arthur on his morning run. It’s been a long day.

“Why did you?” Arthur asks, as Eames collects his clothes from the floor, preparing to go.

“Better the devil you know,” Eames quotes at him in turn, and lets himself out.

  


0.

He’s too aware, in the morning, that his time is up. Mr Grey will expect him to report in with a plan for how to take Arthur down without violence, and if he has bugs in the house, he already knows that Eames may have a reason for getting cold feet. Eames can’t afford to give him any reason for doubts.

He has a few minutes of panic, waiting outside on the curb, when Arthur doesn’t appear at the usual time for their customary morning run. Arthur’s car is still in the drive, though, and just when Eames is ready to go knock on his door he appears, dressed in track bottoms and a light but still entirely superfluous hooded sweatshirt over his tee.

They jog in silence, down to the beach and through the first stretch, fighting the sucking pull of dry sand and dodging the tide. When they reach the lifeguard station, Eames uses the charade of stretching to lean close enough to say quietly, “There’s a boat, less than a kilometer ahead. The key should be under the seat. There’s enough petrol to get you to further down the coast, and you can hire a plane from there. Cash is in a bag inside the aft storage compartment.”

For a moment, Arthur just looks at him. Then he says quietly, “They’ll know it was you.”

Eames shrugs. “They’ll suspect. I highly doubt they’ll be able to prove it.”

Arthur gives him a look that says _as if proof matters_ , but Eames has already thought of that. He has emergency plans of his own in place if he needs them, but it would be more convenient if he could get out of this without drawing down heat. Both of them don’t need to be on the run without immediate resources.

“Have you thought,” Arthur says, “that all of this might be a test, and you’re really dreaming right now? That they’re putting you through this to see whether they can trust you?”

Eames hadn’t, but it’s too late to ask himself that question now. “Then I suppose they have their answer,” he replies. He looks up, out at the beach, scanning the crowd. There are too many people here, they’re too exposed. He doesn’t believe for a minute that he’s the only tail Mr Grey planted. “You should go,” he says. “Jog to that rainbow umbrella, and then take me out.”

“Would you prefer a few punches, or a kick to the ribs?” Arthur asks. He pushes himself up and starts jogging again. Eames falls in alongside him.

“Just make it look good,” he answers. They’re halfway to the umbrella now. It’s still a fair distance from the boat, but Eames has to be able to give chase if they want to realistically get away with this. He only hopes that whoever else is watching isn’t close enough to interfere before Arthur can get away.

Two paces from the umbrella, Arthur stumbles, feigning a cramp. Eames reaches out to steady him, leaving himself open, making it easy.

“Be careful out there,” he murmurs, low beneath the crash of the waves and shrieks of the gulls.

Arthur sets his jaw and takes the first swing.


End file.
